Volume 16 , Issue 35

1897 - Miles of Salt In Woodward County

The Guthrie Daily Leader, dated 29 July 1897, page 4, reported "Miles of Salt." Immense Saline Reservation in Woodward county.

The immense saline reservation in the northeastern part of Woodward county was a remarkable sight in the summer.

The reservation was many square miles in extent and the surface of the earth, so far as the eye could reach, was encrusted with salt from half an inch to more than a foot in thickness. The absence of dust storms that year had left this plain of salt as white as snow and at a distance it resembled a vast lake of water. The slat came from the evaporation of water from soundless salt springs that bubbled up in the low, marshy land. The reservation was leased from the Cherokee Indians in 1884 by a syndicate of politicians, Senator Manderson, of Nebraska, being one of the number. The syndicate was to pay a royalty on all salt taken from the reservation, but not a pound had ever been shipped away. Stockmen scooped it up by the wagon load and feed it to their cattle. The reservation was about twenty miles from a railway.   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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